Rose and Jack: A New Life
by Bohemian Anne
Summary: In most Jack lives stories, Jack and Rose eventually live happily ever after. What if things didn't turn out so well in the end?
1. Prologue: The Dream

**Prologue**

_"Jack!" Rose screamed._

_"Well, well, well. I thought I'd gotten rid of you. Looks like I have to now," Cal said._

_"You didn't answer my question. What are you doing?" Jack asked once more._

_"I'm teaching this slut a lesson."_

_"What lesson? You're killing her...is that a lesson?"_

_"I..."_

_Nurses and police barged into Rose's room. They put handcuffs on Cal and took him away. The nurses came to Rose to make sure she was okay. Then, when they were finished, they left._

_"Jack! How I've missed you!" Rose cried, while running into his arms._

_"And I have missed you, too!" Jack exclaimed._

_They were hugging with joy._

_"Where were you?" Rose asked. "I thought that I'd never see you again."_

_"I was on top with all of the other passengers. And how I survived the sinking is a long story," Jack answered._

_"Well, I don't care how you got here...I'm just glad you did."_

_Rose and Jack kissed._

_"Rose DeWitt Bukater!" Ruth shouted._

_"Mother?" Rose asked in confusion._

_"What in the world are you doing? You're coming with me...now!"_

_"No, Mother." Rose coughed. "I love him."_

_"Rose DeWitt Bukater! You will do what I tell you this instant!"_

_"Mother, I'm not a child anymore. You cannot and will not tell me what to do anymore!"_

_Ruth came in and grabbed Rose's hand._

_"Oh, yes, you will!"_

_"Jack! Do something!"_

_"Don't worry! I'll save you!" Jack said as a good-bye._

_Things had turned for the worse for Rose and Jack._

_"I have had it up to here with your crying!" Ruth shouted._

_"Shut up, Mother! All the time I have been listening to you! Do this. Do that. Wear this. Eat that! I'm tired of being told to do tasks that I don't have the need to perform, Mother!" Rose shouted back._

_"You know very well your father left us dirt poor with nothing...not a gosh darn penny! Marrying Cal is best...for all of us, and you know that perfectly, Rose!"_

_"I don't want to marry Cal, Mother! I want to marry Jack."_

_"What?"_

_"That's right. Jack Dawson, the one who saved my life on the Titanic!"_

_"No daughter of mine is going to marry a two-bit artist!"_

_"A two-bit artist! How can you say that, Mother? You've never seen his work!"_

_"I don't need to see it because it's junk!"_

_Rose was very upset now, so out of anger, she punched her mother._

_"I don't want you to get involved in my life ever again, and I am going back!"_

_Rose packed a small suitcase and ran to the room she had stayed in, hoping Jack would be there._

_Rose knocked on the door._

_"Rose! I knew you'd be back!" Jack exclaimed._

_"Thank God you're still here!" Rose said._


	2. Reunited 1

**Chapter One**

Rose awoke abruptly, still curled up on the hard wooden bench. The blanket she had been given when she had boarded the Carpathia was still wrapped around her, but was damp now from the seawater soaking her coat and dress.

She sat up slowly, looking around. It was growing late; the first hints of sunset were appearing in the sky. She had slept most of the day.

Pulling the blanket up to hide her matted red curls, Rose drew her legs up, wrapping her arms around them and resting her head on her knees. She looked around again, taking in the groups of mostly women and children scattered around the steerage deck. Some were crying, while others sat numbly, as though they didn't quite know what was happening. One small group slept in a heap on the deck—a man, a woman, and a tiny infant. The man was incongruously clad in a tattered dress and damp shawl—obviously, he had sneaked aboard a lifeboat dressed as a woman.

Watching the little family as they slept peacefully, Rose couldn't blame him. She wished that she had thought of that—she could have taken off her dress and insisted that Jack wear it—she would still have had her undergarments on for modesty—and given him the blanket to cover his head with. Then he could have gotten into the lifeboat with her. If he had, she would never have jumped out of the boat, and they would never have ended up in the cold, dark sea.

Rose pulled her knees closer to her chest, shivering as she thought of her dream. It had seemed so vivid, so real. She had almost believed that Jack really was alive and well, that they had found each other on the rescue ship.

But it wasn't true, and it never would be. Jack was gone. When a lifeboat had finally come back, searching for survivors, she had tried to awaken him—to no avail. She had wanted to give up then and die with him—but then she had remembered her promise, and she had known that she had to survive. She couldn't let Jack down after all he had done for her.

So she had let him go, watching as he sank into the water and disappeared. She had taken a whistle from a nearby dead officer and used it to alert the rescuers to her presence—and that was the last thing she knew until she had opened her eyes to see the officer in her boat waving a flare to show the rescue ship their location.

Tears came to her eyes for the first time since she had realized Jack was gone, and suddenly she was sobbing, burying her face in the blanket and trying not disturb anyone. She had always been taught that such strong emotions were to be expressed only in private, but now—now she couldn't help it. Her grief ran too deep. It _had_ to be expressed.

Rose's chest tightened painfully as she wept, a deep cough erupting, but couldn't stop crying. Her tears wouldn't stop until her grief had eased.

Jack lay in the infirmary, wrapped in blankets and still shivering. He had been brought there that morning after being raised onto the rescue ship in a sling—he had been too weak from exposure and shivering too hard to manage the climb. One of the Carpathia stewards had helped him to the infirmary, where he had drunk a cup of hot broth and then fallen asleep under several layers of blankets.

Now, he struggled to sit up, looking around. Most of the other beds were occupied, mostly by Titanic survivors. He looked over the faces, hoping to see Rose, but there was no sign of her.

_What could have happened to her?_ he wondered. _She promised that she would survive, didn't she? I made her promise. I'm sure of it._

He thought hard, his memory fuzzy. He remembered finding a piece of wreckage and helping Rose onto it, and he vaguely remembered extracting a promise from Rose that she would survive—but that was the last thing he remembered before being helped aboard the Carpathia.

Where was Rose? Had she rescued him? Had he rescued her? She had to be alive—she'd promised. But then, if the cold had been too much for her, she would have died, promise or no promise.

But how could she be dead? She had been on the piece of wreckage, out of the water, and she had been wearing Cal's warm coat. He was alive, and he had been in the water and wearing no coat at all. Since he was alive, she had to be, too.

But where was she, then? Had she gone back to first class? Perhaps, after the trauma of the sinking, she had decided she wanted nothing to do with him and life on the edge. She might be there now, safe and warm with Cal and her mother.

He shook his head. No, she wouldn't have gone back to Cal. He more than anyone knew how she loathed him, how desperate she had been to get away from him. But there was no guarantee that Cal had survived—Jack had his doubts about Cal's "arrangement." With a certainty, though, Ruth DeWitt Bukater had survived, and Rose might be with her.

The fastest way to find out if Rose had survived, and if so, where she was, would be to check a survivor's list, but he didn't know where he might find one, or if one had even been completed yet. He didn't know how many people had survived or how many had died—or even how many had been on the ship in the first place.

Jack lay back down, pulling the blankets more tightly around himself. He wasn't as cold anymore—in fact, a quick hand to his forehead made him suspect that he was growing feverish. Still, he was in no condition to go wandering around the ship, searching for someone who might not be there or who might not want to see him.

His eyes drooped wearily as he lay back against the thin mattress. There was no way he could go in search of Rose now—he could only hope that she was alive and keeping her promise.


	3. Reunited 2

**ROSE AND JACK: A NEW LIFE  
Chapter Two**

Rose drew a shaky breath, coughing as she drew the damp blanket tighter around her. Her tears had finally stopped, but now her chest hurt when she breathed too deeply, and wracking coughs shook her shivering frame.

It was fully dark now, and many people had taken shelter inside against the chill of night, leaving her nearly alone on the deck. A few hardy individuals still lingered, but most had gone.

Slowly, Rose got to her feet, her legs feeling oddly heavy—a sensation she had only known in the past when fevered. Putting a hand to her brow, she felt the heat emanating from it—far more heat than was natural for someone who had so recently been in the icy waters of the North Atlantic.

A bit unsteadily, she moved away from the bench, heading for the door to the inside steerage area. At the least, she could go inside—certainly staying out in the cold wasn't going to help her if she was getting sick. If she was lucky, she might find the infirmary and get proper care before she got worse.

XXXXX

Rose was beginning to feel delirious by the time she stumbled upon the infirmary. She walked inside slowly, her fevered gaze falling dully on the people inside. Most of the patients were survivors of the Titanic sinking. Only one doctor and a two nurses were working amongst the patients—no one had expected the Carpathia to be a rescue ship.

There were several volunteers working in the infirmary, as well, and it was one of these that Rose first spoke to.

"Excuse me, Ma'am…I…I'm one of the Titanic survivors…but I don't feel so well…" she croaked.

The plump, middle-aged woman looked at her with concern. "You don't look so good, either." She put a hand to Rose's forehead. "In fact, you're burning up. Sit down while I get a nurse to see you."

She led Rose to a chair, then hurried off, speaking to a nurse who was tending to a patient lying under a pile of blankets. The nurse nodded, finishing with her current patient and then hurrying over to Rose.

She bent over her, confirming that she was, indeed, feverish, then pulled a thermometer from her pocket. She quickly sterilized it with rubbing alcohol, then instructed Rose to put it under her tongue.

Rose stared at the thermometer for a moment, not quite comprehending what she was supposed to do with it. The nurse sighed, realizing that Rose was on the edge of delirium.

"Put this under your tongue, dear," she told her, tugging on Rose's chin to get her to open her mouth.

Rose let the nurse put the thermometer under her tongue, then waited silently for the three minutes necessary to get a temperature reading. When the nurse took the thermometer from her, she looked at the temperature and frowned.

"Almost a hundred and four degrees. No wonder you don't feel well."

Rose leaned back in the chair, looking at the nurse blankly. "I was…in the water…last night," she told her slowly, wishing she could just go to sleep.

"Stay here, young lady." The nurse straightened, looking around the infirmary. "I'm going to get the doctor."

Rose was dozing, her head leaning against the wall, when the doctor came to see her a few minutes later. She opened her eyes when he put her a hand on her shoulder, and cringed at first, seeing only his dark hair and mistaking him for Cal.

When she blinked her eyes a few times, clearing her vision, she saw that the man standing before her wasn't her detested ex-fiancé. He was a good bit older than Cal, and had a thick mustache, while Cal was clean-shaven.

"Miss? I'm Dr. Thompson," he told her. "What's your name?"

"Rose…" She started coughing.

When the cough ended, he asked, "What's your last name?"

Rose stared at him blearily, trying to think of what to say. "D…my chest hurts," she complained.

"All right. We'll worry about your name later," Dr. Thompson told her, taking out his stethoscope. He put it against her chest, instructing her to take a deep breath.

Rose tried to take a deep breath, but wound up coughing instead. After trying to get her to take a deep breath twice more, and listening to her heart and lungs, Dr. Thompson told her, "I'm afraid you may be developing pneumonia. Nurse Bittner told me you were in the water last night."

"That's right," Rose responded, trying to stay awake. "I was rescued…later." She coughed painfully, then went on, "Jack wasn't rescued."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Dr. Thompson told her gently, helping her to her feet as Nurse Bittner approached them. "Nurse Bittner will get you settled."

Rose took a step forward, frowning at how heavy her legs felt. "All right."

She followed slowly behind Nurse Bittner, who took her coat and shoes and pulled back the sheet on the bed next to that of the patient covered by a pile of blankets. She started to lay down, but the patient in the bed beside hers caught her eye.

Not quite believing what she was seeing, Rose rubbed her eyes, resisting as Nurse Bittner tried to get her to lay down. She shook her head, wondering if the fever was causing her to hallucinate.

There, sleeping soundly under a pile of blankets, was Jack.

A moment later, Rose knew that he was real. She pushed herself away from her bed, walking the few feet to Jack's sleeping form.

"Jack! Jack, wake up!" She reached out to shake him, but her foot caught in the tattered hem of her dress. With a startled cry, she fell on top of him.

Jack had been sleeping soundly when the sound of his name came to his ears. Confused, he opened his eyes for a moment, then closed them, not sure if someone had really called his name in a hoarse voice, or if he was dreaming.

A moment later, he knew he wasn't dreaming. He came fully awake, startled, as someone fell atop him. Yelping in surprise, he tried to sit up, but a curtain of salt-encrusted red hair covered his face, and the person who had fallen on him grasped at him rudely, coughing hard and trying to regain their footing.

Pushing the hair from his face, he started to push away the person who had fallen on him, then found himself face-to-face with Rose. Her face was red with exertion as she coughed, no longer trying to get to her feet.

Nurse Bittner grabbed Rose's arms and pulled her to her feet. "Young lady, this is most inappropriate!"

Rose stopped coughing long enough to open her eyes and look at him. "Jack!" she gasped, reaching towards him. "Jack, how…" Another fit of coughing interrupted her words.

"Rose!" Jack pushed the blankets off and got up, reaching for her as she swayed in the nurse's arms. "Rose…you're alive!"

Rose's eyes suddenly filled with tears. "Jack…you died…" she rasped, trying to make sense of everything. "Jack…"

He helped Nurse Bittner get her into bed, but Rose refused to lie back. "Don't go," she begged Jack. "You died…"

"No, Rose. No. I didn't die. I'm alive. I'm not sure how I survived, but I am alive." He sneezed, wiping his runny nose in annoyance.

"But…" Rose began coughing again, a deep, painful cough that seemed to come from the depths of her chest. When it finally stopped, she tried again. "I…let you go…you sank…you were dead…"

"Just unconscious," he assured her, a piece of the puzzle falling into place. "Being underwater must have woken me up."

She closed her eyes, and he thought she had fallen asleep, but a moment later she opened them, reaching to touch his face and assure herself that he really was there. "Stay, Jack. Please…"

"I'm not going anywhere, Rose. I promise."

"Mr. Dawson, you need to get back in bed. You aren't ready to be up yet. Miss, please lie down. You're developing pneumonia, and all this exertion isn't helping you." Dr. Thompson came forward, separating them. "Nurse Bittner, give her aspirin for her fever and cough syrup for her lungs. Get one of the volunteers to sponge her down with alcohol to lower the fever more quickly."

Rose clung stubbornly to Jack's hand. "Stay with me." She began to cough again, whimpering a little at the pain.

Jack touched her face, then leaned down and kissed her forehead. "I'm right here, Rose. I won't go anywhere. I promise."

"Mr. Dawson, please lie down." Nurse Bittner pulled Jack and Rose's hands apart and directed him back to his own bed. "You're only a few feet apart, and you both need your rest. You can see each other later, when you've both had a chance to recover a little."

Reluctantly, Jack went back to his own bed and lay down. He rolled over on his side and looked ar Rose, who was fighting the foul-tasting cough syrup. When one of the ladies who had volunteered to help the Titanic survivors placed a screen between them for privacy so that she could help Rose bathe, he finally closed his eyes and drifted back into an uncomfortable, but far more peaceful, sleep.


	4. Reunited 3

**ROSE AND JACK: A NEW LIFE  
Chapter Three**

For the next two and a half days, Rose fought against pneumonia, struggling deliriously to breathe, while Jack, in spite of suffering from a bad cold after his exposure to the icy water, stayed at her side constantly.

As the days passed, Rose's fever stayed almost steadily at one hundred four degrees, sometimes dropping slightly from the effects of aspirin and bathing with cool water, but always returning to the same dangerously high level.

Jack sat beside her as much as he could, fighting his own cold and the resulting exhaustion to tend to her. He washed her face with water drawn from the icy Atlantic, helping to lower her fever from time to time, and had even unbuttoned the nightgown a Carpathia passenger had loaned her in order to wash her down more thoroughly—although that attempt had been quickly stopped by Nurse Bittner, who had been horrified at what she saw as his attempt to improperly touch the delirious woman.

Jack often sat with her on her cot, holding her up against his own body so that she could breathe more easily, and when Rose was lucid enough to realize he was there, she clung to him, evidently terrified of her struggle to breathe, while Jack did his best to reassure her that she would be all right—though he wasn't entirely certain he believed it himself. He helped her to drink sips of water, tea, and broth, and encouraged her to cooperate with the doctor and nurse, although, in her frequent delirium, Rose repeatedly mistook Dr. Thompson for Cal, cringing and trying to hide from him, and when Nurse Bittner tried to give her medicine, she often spit it out, not realizing that the bitter drugs might help her.

Even when Dr. Thompson, Nurse Bittner, or one of the volunteers succeeded in getting Jack to lie down and rest for a while, his thoughts were never far from Rose. He wondered why it was that she was far more ill from her exposure to the cold than he was, even though she had been wearing a warm coat and a lifebelt and had been able to get up onto the piece of debris and out of the water.

He himself had had no coat, since the one he had "borrowed" had been taken from him and he had had no chance to go back to his room to get his own coat—although from what Fabrizio had told him, any attempt to go back to their room would have been foolhardy in the extreme, as the room had flooded not long after the Titanic had struck the iceberg. In retrospect, Jack realized that he should have kept the blanket Cal had taken from Rose when he had given her his coat, but he hadn't thought about it at the time, not with his efforts to coax Rose into the boat, and then his frantic race after her when she had jumped out of the lifeboat and back onto the sinking ship. In truth, a blanket would probably have been lost in the sinking, and would probably have impeded his efforts to swim to the surface had he been able to hold onto it, but after the bitter chill of the North Atlantic, he wished he had had something to help warm him.

In spite of his lack of a coat and lifebelt, and having to remain in the water because there wasn't enough room on the piece of debris for both of them, Rose was suffering now far more than he was. He shuddered to think of the condition she would be in now had she not had the coat and lifebelt and the piece of debris to keep her out of the water, and could only conclude that the reason for his suffering less from the effects of exposure than Rose was that he had been toughened by many a cold night spent outside in whatever place he could find to sleep, while she had always had a warm bed to sleep in and warm clothes to wear when it was cold. Jack had developed a tolerance for the cold, while Rose had not.

XXXXX

In the mid-afternoon on April eighteenth, Rose's fever finally broke. Her cough lessened and her breathing grew easier, and she soon fell into an exhausted sleep, waking near sunset to find Jack holding her hand and dozing in his chair beside her.

"Jack?" Rose whispered his name, reaching with her free hand to touch his face.

Jack awoke at her touch, looking down to see her looking at him clearly for the first time since she had come into the infirmary and discovered his presence.

"Rose, how are you feeling?"

Rose looked at him, slightly confused. "Jack, you're here. You're really here…it wasn't a dream, was it?"

"No, Rose. I'm really here."

"I thought you were dead." Rose felt her eyes start to fill with tears and blinked hard, embarrassed.

"I've been beside you for the past three days. You fell on me when the nurse was trying to get you into a bed…and I've been beside you ever since. Don't you remember?"

"I…I remember falling on someone and thinking it was you, but…I wasn't sure it wasn't all a dream. I thought you were here, too, when I couldn't breathe…but it's all a blur. Nothing makes sense."

"I'm here, Rose. You weren't dreaming. You've been really sick, though…pneumonia. I was afraid you wouldn't make it. Your fever just broke a few hours ago, and you've been sleeping ever since."

Rose struggled to sit up, reaching out a hand to touch Jack's face when she finally succeeded. "You're not well yourself."

Jack shrugged, reaching for a handkerchief and blowing his nose, looking at Rose apologetically. "It's just a cold."

"You need to take care of yourself before it becomes something worse."

"I'll be all right. I'm a survivor, remember?"

"Nevertheless…" Rose stopped, vaguely remembering something from her delirium. "Jack, was Cal here?"

"He hasn't been here, Rose, although you mistook the doctor for him several times."

Rose turned red. "What…what did I say to him?"

"Mostly you just coughed and tried to hide under the sheet, although once you begged him to put the gun away."

"Gun?"

"It was a syringe, actually. You kept spitting out your medicine, so he gave you a shot instead."

"Oh…" Rose buried her face in her hands. "Does…does he really look much like Cal?"

"See for yourself…he's coming over here."

Dr. Thompson stopped beside Rose's cot. "It's good to see you awake, Miss…"

Rose glanced at Jack, then back at Dr. Thompson. "Dawson. Rose Dawson." She glanced at Jack again, then turned her attention back to the doctor, fidgeting in embarrassment. "Dr. Thompson? I…I apologize for…for what I said…earlier. You…"

"It's all right, Miss Dawson. Delirious people don't always make sense." He glanced at Jack. "Mr. Dawson, if you would be so kind as to return to your own bed, I need to examine Miss…erm…" He looked at them, wondering what their relationship was.

"She's my cousin," Jack quickly prevaricated.

"I see." Dr. Thompson looked skeptical, but nodded, gesturing to Nurse Bittner to put a privacy screen between Rose's cot and Jack's.

Rose sat quietly as Dr. Thompson examined her, still embarrassed at mistaking him for Cal. He really didn't resemble Cal that much…he had dark hair and eyes, but his face was much sharper and he sported a handlebar mustache, while Cal was clean-shaven. She couldn't believe she had made such a mistake—and not just once, but several times. To be sure, she was afraid of Cal—after all, he had tried to kill Jack and herself on the sinking Titanic—but she must have been truly out of her head to mistake the doctor who was trying to help her for the man who had tried to kill her.

Dr. Thompson finished his examination and allowed her button her nightgown back up. "Well, Miss Dawson, it looks like you are on your way to recovery. One of your lungs is almost clear, while the other sounds much better than it did even a few hours ago, and your temperature is back to normal. I do want you find a place to stay as soon as the ship docks in a couple of hours and rest for a few days…let your body tell you when you're ready to resume your normal activities. With rest, and if you stay warm and dry, you should be fine."

Rose thanked Dr. Thompson, and he left, going to tend to the next patient. Nurse Bittner removed the privacy screen, taking it to the next patient. When Rose lay down, she turned her head to see Jack looking at her with an odd expression on his face.

"What?" she asked, forgetting for the moment what she had called herself.

"Rose _Dawson_?" Jack raised an eyebrow at her.

"What else was I to call myself?"

"Rose DeWitt Bukater, maybe?"

Rose shook her head vehemently. "No. That's my old name, part of my old life. I can't go back to it…not after what Cal did while the ship was sinking. He has a violent temper, and we badly wounded his pride. He'll kill me if I go back to him."

"You don't know that, Rose. He may have been acting out of anger…"

"He most certainly was…but his pride won't let him back down. He'll kill me if I go back to him…and Mother will make me go back to him if I return to my old life. This marriage was to have been her financial security. No." Rose shook her head. "I'll take another name if you don't want me sharing yours…but I won't be Rose DeWitt Bukater again. She died with the Titanic…and I'm starting a new life."

"Rose…you can keep the name. I don't mind…though I'll admit I never expected to give my name to someone this way." He got up, sitting on the edge of her cot and pulling her into his arms. "I'd like to come with you and be part of your new life…if you'll let me."

Rose looked up at him, a smile lighting her face. "Of course you can…didn't I say I was getting off the ship with you?"

"Yeah…yeah, you did."

"Jack, I…" Rose stopped, realizing that his attention was no longer focused on her. Looking up, she followed his gaze to see what he was staring at.

Cal stood in the doorway of the infirmary, watching them.


	5. Reunited 4

**ROSE AND JACK: A NEW LIFE  
Chapter Four**

Jack and Rose froze as Cal walked toward them, his face twisting in contempt as he looked at them. Rose drew back, pressing against the wall behind her cot. She clutched Jack's hand, her heart pounding and her breathing increasing until she began to cough again.

"Wh-what—" she started to say, but got no farther before she began coughing uncontrollably.

Cal stared at them for a moment, barely concealed rage in his eyes at the sight of Rose clinging to Jack. A moment later, his expression shifted, his mouth forming a wide smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Sweetpea…thank God you're alive! Your mother and I have been looking for you everywhere."

"What do you want, Cal?" Jack glared at him, not bothering to return the fake smile.

Cal's eyes narrowed as he returned Jack's look. With all the people who had died when the Titanic sank, why couldn't the gutter rat have been one of them?

"I wasn't speaking to you, Dawson. I was speaking to my fiancée."

Rose finally stopped coughing. "I'm not…your fiancée, Cal." More coughing threatened, but she suppressed it. "You tried to kill me."

Cal's mouth twitched, something that Rose had long ago learned meant that he was very angry. "I did no such thing."

Oddly enough, Jack agreed with him. "I think he was actually aiming for me, Rose."

Cal ignored him, continuing to stare at Rose. "I have never threatened you or anyone else. Perhaps someone threatened you on that ship—considering the sort of people you chose to associate with, that's not at all surprising—but I would never try to do you harm. You are much too precious to me."

Eyes narrowed, Rose spat a very unladylike response at Cal.

For a moment, Cal was so startled by her foul language that he only stared at her. Then, regaining his composure, he said, "I would never have thought you even knew such words. Come, Sweetpea. This little rebellion has gone on long enough…much too long, in fact. Not only have you learned some very bad manners, but it's almost cost you your life. We will be docking in a couple of hours. Until then, you'll be much better off in first class, and then your mother and I will get you a warm room and a good doctor."

Rose pressed back harder against the wall, one hand still clutching Jack's and the other clinging to the sheet. If Cal decided to force the issue and drag her back to first class physically, there was nothing she could do. She wasn't strong enough to fight him off. What could she do—cough on him? Spit in his face again? She didn't even have enough breath to scream—not that it was likely to do any good. No one would stop her fiancé from taking her back to first class, especially when it was so obvious she was ill. No one would question him if he told them that she was delirious, that she had been traumatized by the sinking and didn't know what she was doing.

Cal was, in fact, considering bringing her back to first class by force, but when he moved toward her, Jack pulled his hand away and got to his feet, getting between Cal and Rose. "Leave her alone. She doesn't want to go with you."

"Back off, Dawson. It's up to her whether she wants to go with me—not you."

"I want to stay here," Rose croaked.

"Now, Sweetpea, you know that isn't true. You don't need to stay here to make him feel better—I'm sure he knows he was just a diversion. It's not uncommon for young women to get cold feet before the wedding—though you'd better not do it again. As I told you a few days ago, I will not be made a fool of. Now, let me help you up…"

"Get out of here, Cal." Jack wasn't giving up. He knew that Cal was stronger than him, that he could have Jack removed from the infirmary while he took Rose away, but he wasn't going to let him have her without a fight. "She said she wants to stay here."

Fists clenching, Cal moved toward Jack, intending to push him out of the way, but stopped when Jack sneezed and wiped his nose on his hand. The younger man would undoubtedly be easy to shove aside at this point, but Cal had no desire to catch whatever disease he was suffering from.

Trying to look as though he hadn't been scared off by the idea of catching something from Jack, Cal stepped back, assuming a casual air. "Rose…Sweetpea…I will tell your mother where you are. She will come to see you and arrange for you to return to first class with us."

"I'm not going back with you." Rose's voice was clearer now. "I'm staying with Jack."

Cal just looked at her, a strange half-smile on his face. "We'll see about that."

With that, he turned and left.

*****

Half an hour later, as Rose was finally dozing off again, glad for Jack's presence but fearing that Cal would be able to force her to return to first class with him, Cal returned to the infirmary, Ruth accompanying him. Ruth stepped gingerly, her arms tightly against her sides as though fearing contamination.

Ruth's expression changed, however, when she saw Rose lying half-asleep on the cot, Jack sitting beside her and holding her hand. Forgetting her fear and disgust at the people in steerage, she rushed forward, startling Rose from her near-sleep and causing her to look up in alarm.

"M-Mother!" Rose struggled to sit up, a deep cough erupting from her throat.

Ruth stopped just as she came to Rose's side, putting on a dignified front once again. Still she couldn't hide the joy in her voice when she exclaimed, "Rose! You're alive! Cal and I looked everywhere…I was beginning to fear you had perished. When Cal told me he'd found you in steerage, I couldn't believe it—but here you are."

Rose stared at her, not sure what to say. Her mother had never been one to express strong emotions—not for long, anyway. Occasionally, Rose had caught a glimpse of what was going on inside her mother's mind—most recently when Ruth had expressed her fear of losing everything because of Rose's insistence upon running about with Jack Dawson—but now Ruth stood before her, teary-eyed with joy at the knowledge that Rose was alive.

"Mother, I—" Rose looked past her, seeing that Cal was watching them with a triumphant look in his eyes, certain that Ruth would be able to talk Rose into returning to first class.

Ruth put her arms around her daughter and pulled her close. "I've never been so frightened in my life as when I thought you were dead," she whispered. Straightening, she went on, "Now, Rose, we are going to dock soon. I will get one of the nurses to help you to my room in first class, where you can rest until we're ready to leave the ship. Cal has already wired ahead for reservations at the Waldorf-Astoria. We will get you comfortable, then send for a doctor—"

"No, Mother." Rose shook her head vehemently. "I'm staying with Jack." Even if Ruth offered to allow Jack to accompany them to the Waldorf-Astoria—which Rose highly doubted would happen—she would not accept. There was something in the way Cal looked at her that frightened her as much as he had when he been shooting at her. Whatever Cal was planning, it didn't bode well for either her or Jack.

"Rose, please." Ruth sat gingerly on the cot, making it sag dangerously—it wasn't meant for the weight of three people—and put an arm around her daughter. "Cal told me you've been ill—I can see for myself that it's true. You can't stay here. The ship will be docking soon. What will you do then? You can't just stay out on the street—it's raining, and there's every sign it's raining in New York, too."

"I'll take care of her, Mrs. DeWitt Bukater," Jack promised. "I've been to New York before—there's shelters where we can stay—"

He stopped when he saw the look on Ruth's face. The very idea of her daughter in a shelter for the homeless horrified her.

Cal stepped in. "She'll come with us," he told Jack. "The Waldorf is a fine hotel, far better than any of your shelters."

"No!" Rose protested. She'd had enough of her situation being discussed as though she had no say in the matter. "I said I was staying with Jack, and I meant it." She began to cough again, her face turning red from the effort.

"Rose, listen to yourself. You're much too ill to be on the street or in some dirty little shelter with who knows how many people," Ruth pleaded with her.

"Perhaps I could come to the Waldorf with Rose," Jack suggested. He doubted Ruth DeWitt Bukater would appreciate the suggestion, but he had to make it.

As he'd thought, Ruth looked at him with open dislike, but her expression wavered somewhat when she looked at her daughter. Finally, though, she looked up at Cal. Her future depended upon his goodwill, and as the prospect of his becoming her son-in-law grew dimmer and dimmer, she knew that she had to do whatever was necessary to stay on his good side. If she was to have any hope of maintaining her current lifestyle, she had to remain in Cal's good graces.

Cal had no compunction about expressing his opinion of Jack's suggestion. "Absolutely not! Rose, you are _my_ fiancée, not his, and you will come with me! I don't care what happens to him, but he will not be anywhere near you."

Rose set her face stubbornly, refusing to give in. "I am going with Jack. Nothing you say can change my mind."

Cal looked at her in frustration. "Sweetpea, this is completely inappropriate. Insisting that you're going to stay with this—this person that you've known for less than a week, that you're not married to—"

"I'm not married to you, either, and I'm not going to be. From now on, I am going to make my own decisions, my own choices, and I am choosing to stay with Jack."

Cal's jaw was twitching again; Rose knew that she had made him very angry. He didn't dare show it in front of Ruth, though. Instead, he stared at Jack threateningly, wanting the gutter rat to know that this wasn't over. When his eyes fell on the severed handcuffs still on Jack's wrists, he smiled slightly, knowing that there was still something he could do to separate them.

Ruth looked from Rose to Cal, trying to decide what to do. She was overjoyed to find that her daughter was alive, but she didn't want to challenge Cal and lose all hope of remaining a member of high society. Finally, she told her daughter, "Rose, you are welcome to come back any time you want—provided you not bring _him_." She looked pointedly at Jack. "After we leave the Waldorf, we will be returning home to Philadelphia. When this…affair…of yours ends, as I'm sure it will, you may return."

Not sure what else to say, Ruth rose stiffly from her daughter's side and left the infirmary, her arms once again held rigidly at her sides. Cal watched her go, then turned to Jack and Rose, barely concealing his anger.

"I want my coat, _Sweetpea_," he told her, the endearment sounding more like a curse.

Rose looked at him strangely, wondering at the sudden change of subject; wondering, too, why he wanted a coat that was now badly damaged by the water. He could easily afford another.

"Where is it?" he asked, his eyes narrowing.

"I…I don't know," Rose told him truthfully. "I think the nurse took it when I came here…"

"Goddammit!"

Jack and Rose stared at him, confused and startled by his anger at the loss of the garment. What could possibly be so important about it?

Cal clenched his fists, staring at Jack and Rose as though they were responsible for the loss, wondering if either of them had any idea what had been inside the coat. He quickly dismissed the idea, certain that if they had known, they would never have let the coat out of their sight.

Without another word, he turned and stalked out of the infirmary, leaving Jack and Rose staring after him in bewilderment.


	6. Reunited 5

**ROSE AND JACK: A NEW LIFE  
Chapter Five**

_April 18, 1912  
New York_

It was late when the Carpathia finally docked, rain pouring down on the docks and the city beyond. The steerage passengers were the last to leave the ship, and those in the infirmary in steerage the last of all.

Rose was eager to disembark, to set foot on dry land again, but when she tried to get out of bed, she was shocked to discover how much her bout with pneumonia had weakened her. She had always been strong before, but the illness, along with the hypothermia she was still recovering from, had sapped her strength.

Her legs trembled when she stood, nearly sending her tumbling back down on the cot. Only Jack's steadying hands kept her from losing her balance.

"Rose, wait. Maybe this isn't such a good idea. I can go look for a wheelchair," Jack suggested, supporting her as she leaned against him.

"I'm fine," Rose tried to tell him, but in truth, taking even a few steps, let alone the number needed to leave the ship and find shelter, seemed overwhelming.

A few volunteers from the Red Cross had come aboard to help with the ill and injured steerage passengers. One of them approached her, saying, "If you can hold on a few minutes, Ma'am, I should be able to find a wheelchair for you."

Rose nodded weakly, sinking back down on her cot. This was not the way she wanted to start her new life, weak and coughing and almost helpless.

Jack sat down beside her, putting an arm around her. "You'll be okay, Rose," he told her. "It takes a while to get over something like this. I should know." When Rose looked at him questioningly, he added, "Remember how I told you I fell through some thin ice on Lake Wissota?"

Rose nodded, wrapping her arms around herself and shivering at the very thought of such cold water.

"I got pneumonia after that, and it was several weeks before I was feeling strong again."

"I can't wait that long. We need to move before Mother and Cal decide to drag me back to Philadelphia."

"Maybe you should go with them. They can get you the care you need."

"No, Jack. I'm not going back with them—and I don't trust any 'care' that Cal might arrange for me. He's tried to kill me once—how do I know he won't try to do it again?"

"Rose…" Jack tried to reason with her. "We have no place to go and no money. Everything I owned went down with the ship except the clothes I'm wearing. Unless you have some money or jewelry, I don't know how we can even afford a room to sleep in."

"Sir?" The man who had gone to find a wheelchair for Rose had returned. "My apologies for interrupting, but…I couldn't help but overhear your predicament. The Red Cross is offering shelter to survivors of the Titanic, and we are equipped to assist you if you're ill, provided the illness isn't too severe."

Jack looked at Rose to get her opinion. Although he himself had spent plenty of time sleeping outside under bridges, on benches, in the woods, and anywhere else that seemed reasonably safe, Rose had no such experience, and he didn't want her first experience with sleeping outside to be on the streets of New York, in the rain, while she was just barely beginning to recover from pneumonia.

Rose nodded. It wasn't an ideal solution, but it was better than returning to her mother, and she supposed that Jack was right. Pneumonia took time to recover fully from, and she would just have to be patient and try to regain her health in the meantime. Besides, Jack, for all his brave front, wasn't looking so good himself. He looked exhausted after several days of constantly being at her side, and his cold, while not nearly as severe as her pneumonia, would still disappear faster with shelter and rest.

Jack helped her up, getting her settled in the wheelchair. He frowned when he realized that she was clad only in her thin dress and stockings. Looking around, he saw her badly damaged shoes under her cot and put them on her feet for her, but she was already beginning to shiver from the chill April night air blowing in through the open door.

"Hold on," he told the volunteer, scanning the infirmary for any extra blankets or abandoned coats.

At that moment, Nurse Bittner came back into the infirmary; she couldn't leave until all the patients were safely off. She stopped in her tracks when she re-entered the room, surprised to see that they were still there.

"I thought you'd left," she told Jack and Rose, setting down an armload of unclaimed coats and jackets that various passengers had left behind. She had been told to donate any abandoned belongings to the Red Cross for the use of the survivors.

"Rose needed a little help getting out of here," he explained. Eyeing the pile of clothing, he added, "Would you happen to have an extra jacket or some blankets? She shouldn't be out in the cold like this."

Nurse Bittner straightened the pile of coats, some of them still damp and many torn or misshapen from their owners' experience on the Titanic.

"Perhaps one of them belongs to her?" she suggested. "And what about you, sir? Did you have a coat?"

Jack shook his head. "No…my coat was left on the ship. Rose did have one, though." He sorted through the coats, looking for a black coat of good quality.

He finally found it near the bottom of the pile. When Rose stood shakily, he helped her into it, then took the two blankets Nurse Bittner had brought over and wrapped them around her, wanting to keep her warm.

Rose was almost too warm with so many covers, but she only nodded and murmured her thanks. She was tired and growing hungry, and she wanted to get off the Carpathia and away before her mother or Cal came back for her.

*****

By the time they disembarked, much of the chaos had died down. Only a few reporters remained, trying to get any details they could from the survivors, and a few family members of the Titanic's passengers and crew still lingered, hoping against hope that their loved ones were on the Carpathia or another ship in the vicinity.

Rose could feel the grief and fading hope emanating from the handful of waiting family members as they peered at the three of them, their eyes searching the faces of herself, Jack, and even the Red Cross volunteer in hopes that somehow they were the ones they sought.

At this hour, it didn't take long to get through immigration, something for which both Jack and Rose were grateful. They had no desire to wait in the long lines that so often accompanied newcomers to America, and being from steerage, it was assumed that they were immigrants. The few people still working to process the Titanic's immigrants looked as tired and sad as Jack and Rose felt, and none gave them any argument when they asserted that they were, in fact, American citizens who had been traveling abroad.

As they left the docks and headed for the Red Cross shelter, Rose noticed how violently Jack was shivering in the falling rain, his thin shirt soaked through again. "How much farther?" she asked the man pushing her wheelchair, who had been plodding along slowly, mumbling under his breath every so often about the Red Cross vehicles that had left before they disembarked the ship.

"About three more blocks, Mrs. Dawson," he told her.

Rose didn't bother to correct his assumption that Jack was her husband. Instead, she looked up at the man pushing her wheelchair and asked him to stop.

"Mrs. Dawson, we'll be there soon…"

"Just help me up for a moment," Rose insisted. She wanted desperately to get to shelter, but she couldn't watch Jack suffer in the cold while she herself had more warm things than she needed.

The volunteer reluctantly stopped pushing the wheelchair, looking forward to getting to shelter himself, and waited as Jack helped Rose up, both of them looking at her in puzzlement and a bit of irritation.

Dropping the blankets into the wheelchair, Rose started to shrug out of Cal's coat.

"R-Rose, s-s-stop! What are y-you d-d-doing?" Jack's teeth were chattering so hard he could barely speak. He had no idea why Rose suddenly wanted to stop and take her coat off, and hoped she wasn't becoming delirious again.

Rose shivered as the cold air hit her skin, but was undeterred. "You need a coat, too," she told him, putting the heavy wool garment on his shoulders.

"Rose, no. You need it. You're getting over pneumonia…"

"I was too warm in that coat and both of those blankets." Rose started coughing and sank gratefully back into the wheelchair, wrapping the blankets around herself. When the coughing fit was over, she added weakly, "I couldn't let you freeze."

Jack was more grateful for the warm coat than he wanted to admit. He nodded briefly. "Thank you." He tucked the blankets around her more securely and they were on their way again.

*****

When they reached the shelter, the man who had assisted them left to find a cup of hot coffee and a warm place to sit before heading for home. He left them in the care of the woman running the shelter, who bustled about, amazingly energetic for so late at night, finding them beds, soup, bread, and tea, and aspirin for the low-grade fevers both were running by this time.

After helping Rose out of the wheelchair and into a regular chair at a large, utilitarian table, Jack sat beside her, making sure she had enough to eat. After hurriedly finishing their meals, they sipped their tea, looking forward to being able to rest at last, though they would be separated for the first time since accidentally finding each other in the infirmary—Jack in the men's wing of the shelter and Rose in the women's.

Rose leaned against him, not saying anything, just grateful to be in a warm room at last. She would miss him while she slept, but it was only for the night.

She was nearly asleep when Jack finished his tea, setting his cup on the table and shaking her gently to get her attention. He looked around for the wheelchair, but it was nowhere to be found, so he just helped her to her feet, letting her lean on him for support as he escorted her to the women's sleeping room.

Knowing that he wasn't permitted inside, he opened the door for her, whispering, "Do you think you can make it from here?"

Glad that she had been given the third bed from the door, Rose nodded. "I can make it. I may have to go slowly, but I'll be asleep in that warm bed before I know it."

She turned to give him a quick kiss, then stopped, realizing that they were being stared at disapprovingly by the woman who ran the shelter.

Reluctantly, she pulled back from him, giving him a quick hug before stepping inside the room. Jack headed for the stairs leading to the men's sleeping quarters on the next floor, his hands thrust deep into his coat pockets for warmth.

He frowned as he felt a cold, heavy object in one of the pockets. Wrapping his hand around it, he lifted it from the pocket, his jaw dropping in shock as he saw what it was.

Quickly, he turned and headed back to the entrance to the women's sleeping room. "Rose!" he called softly, trying not to wake anyone.

Rose was halfway to her bed when she heard Jack call her name. She turned, moving slowly back to the entrance to the room, stepping into the hallway and closing the door behind her as Jack gestured urgently to her.

"What is it?" she asked, waving back the shelter's manager, who had come to see what the problem was.

Jack helped her to a corner, then reached into his pocket and pulled out what he'd found. "I think I know why Cal wanted this coat so bad," he told her.

Rose's eyes widened as she stared in astonishment at the Heart of the Ocean.


End file.
